


Early

by LtLJ



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-17
Updated: 2006-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 12:50:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LtLJ/pseuds/LtLJ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This place is so ridiculously beautiful even Rodney can't mock it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Early

**Author's Note:**

> Written after an illustration by Pentapus.

It's barely dawn, the sky just beginning to lighten past the heavy green canopy of the jungle. The jumper sits in the clearing, overhung by vines and ferny branches, and the scent of the white magnolia-like flowers is suspended in the damp air. It makes Rodney think of _Green Mansions_ for some reason; the book, not the terrible movie. It's very quiet, just a little rustling and an occasional bird call. The birds look like cranes in flight, but when they fold themselves up and sit on the branches, it's hard to tell them from the flowers.

Rodney is sitting on a blanket by the big tree near the jumper's open ramp, and he's been working on his laptop, but it's just so damn quiet now. He can hear the Athosians occasionally, moving among the trees, voices in quiet conversation, a laugh. They are here to collect a plant they need to make some of their traditional medicines, and it has to be picked at night. Teyla showed it to Rodney when they first got here yesterday evening. It grows out of the still pools all under the trees like a water lily, white shaded to violet, and at night it opens and very faintly glows.

This place is so ridiculously beautiful even Rodney can't mock it.

Ronon is off on patrol, but it's really the jumper doing the work. Rodney can see the active HUD from out here, the life signs screen and the long range sensors scanning continuously, covering far more ground than Ronon can. Of course, maybe Ronon just likes walking around out there.

Rodney took a walk with the others when they first arrived, but it was quiet and no one was badgering him with problems and questions and nothing was trying to kill him, and he could feel the separate pieces of his latest theory coming together, so he went back to the jumper to work. Sheppard and Teyla had tramped around out there with the others most of the night, playing with the kids, climbing the big smooth roots, getting their boots wet in the shallow flower pools.

They had walked into a cloud of moth-like bugs, and gotten bitten, but the Athosians had been coming here for years and said the bites were harmless. But bug bites always made Sheppard uneasy, and he came back to sit next to the jumper and pretend he wasn't expecting to turn into an Iratus bug. Rodney pointed out that if Sheppard was going to turn into anything from that bite, it was a slow floppy white moth with bad eyesight and a predictable flight pattern, and he could probably be subdued by a good whack with a shoe. As usual, his attempt to lighten the mood went unappreciated.

Still, they had been running back to back missions lately, and they were all tired, even Sheppard. After totally failing to turn into a giant moth, he had fallen asleep, sitting up against the smooth bole of the tree. He kept twitching restlessly, scratching the bites even in his sleep, until Teyla shifted over against him, her bare shoulder against his thin cotton t-shirt.

They had both been asleep for half an hour now, and Sheppard had slid down, his head pillowed on Teyla's arm, until they were curled together like cats, both of them warm and breathing gently, dawn light gleaming on sweat-slick tanned skin, and Rodney had made three errors in his calculations.

It's going to be time to go soon, Rodney can hear Halling somewhere in the green shadows, and Ronon's rare laugh. But it's been a good night, and Rodney waits for dawn with the others.

**end**

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Early (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/246709) by [susan_voight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/susan_voight/pseuds/susan_voight)




End file.
